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Per Christianity Today, “Wheaton College today joined other religious institutions in filing lawsuits over the Obama administration’s Health and Human Services mandate. President Philip Ryken spoke with Christianity Today about the college’s decision.”

You can read Christianity Today’s interview of Dr. Ryken regarding the lawsuit here.

In 2006, Vanessa Willock asked Elane Photography in Albuquerque to photograph her same-sex commitment ceremony. Elane declined because it photographs only traditional weddings, not same-sex weddings. Willock filed and won a claim with the commission, alleging that she was discriminated against based on her sexual orientation.

Mike Wittmer writes in reference to this story, “The worm is turning exceedingly fast, and it’s worth asking who is discriminating against whom. It seems that it’s possible for homosexuals to hate too.”

Alexis de Tocqueville sang the praises of Christianity’s influence in the United States. Yet, he was not an orthodox Christian. As Thomas Kidd has pointed out, in this regard Tocqueville was similar to Jefferson and some of the other founding fathers. A new book by Gregg L. Frazer promises to give more documented clarity on the important matter of Christianity’s role in the beginnings of the United States.

According to Alexis de Tocqueville (Democracy in America), there was little doubt that the United States began in a very Christian context, and that a Christian beginning contributed to America’s success. Tocqueville wrote:

There is no better illustration of the usefulness and naturalness of religion, since the country where its influence is greatest today is also he country that is freest and most enlightened.

In the United States, Tocqueville said that Christianity reigned without impediment and with universal consent.

It should be stressed that Tocqueville’s point was not that the form of the United States government was Christian. Further, Tocqueville said it was not his goal to advocate a particular form of government.Indeed, “Tocqueville marveled at the relative absence of government from American life and the corresponding vitality of civil society, especially when compared to the state’s all-pervasive presence in his native France.” (See Samuel Gregg, “Socialism and Solidarity: Values and Economy,” The City (Spring 2011): 63). Rather than the form of government per se, Tocqueville believed it was Christian values, what Tocqueville called “habits of the heart,” which made for responsible citizens and was the bedrock of the American experiment.

Tocqueville was not naïve about the spirituality of America. He knew that every citizen was not a Christian and allowed that there was plenty of hypocrisy present in those who said that they were Christian. Still in all, he said,

Revolutionaries in America are obliged to profess a certain public respect for Christian morality and equity, so that it is not easy for them to violate the laws when those laws stand in the way of their own designs. And even if they could overcome their own scruples, they would still be held in check by the scruples of their supporters.

It is interesting, for all that he said about the importance of Christianity in the beginning of the United States, Tocqueville himself was not an orthodox Christian. Thomas Kidd (whose book I highly recommend) writes,

Despite his sanguine view of American religion, Tocqueville was personally skeptical about Christianity. Early in his life he became a deist, and for most of his life he did not receive communion as a Catholic. Nevertheless, he always maintained a general belief in God, Providence, and an afterlife. In this combination of personal doubt but public support for religion, Tocqueville manifested a view of religion not unlike that of several prominent founding fathers, including Jefferson. Jefferson and Tocqueville personally abandoned traditional orthodoxy, while maintaining that it was essential for the masses to keep believing in Christianity – – or at least in good and evil – – and in eternal rewards in the afterlife.” Thomas S. Kidd, God of Liberty: A Religious History of the American Revolution (Basic Books, 2010), 248.

Apart from the extremists on the Left and the Right, I imagine there is a sizable swath of the American public that simply asks, “Who cares?” Obviously you think this question matters or you wouldn’t have written a 300-page book on it. So in your view, what difference does it make how one answers the question of the founding fathers’ faith?

The question of the religious beliefs of America’s founders is important for a number of reasons in a number of categories.

For Christians, it matters because of the dangers of the “Christian America” view:

a) designating a mixture of Christian and non-Christian influences as “Christian” or “biblical” attaches the authority of the inerrant, infallible Word of God to a non-biblical hybrid of influences;

b) identifying “religious” people as Christians makes the Gospel one of moral behavior and pronouncements rather than the saving work of Christ and personal commitment to Him;

d) many confuse their cultural heritage with biblical Christianity and lose the ability to distinguish what is truly biblical from what is merely American tradition;

e) the Bible is reduced to a mere tool in service of a political agenda—proper use/interpretation of Scripture is not important, what is important is counting how many times it is quoted (no matter how incorrectly); and

f) confidence is placed in processes and institutions rather than in the sovereign God—belief that the political system was originally Christian focuses and directs efforts of Christians toward correcting the political system and misdirects the resources of the church.

Dan Rather opened a CBS Evening News broadcast in 1991 by declaring, “One in eight American children is going hungry tonight.” Newsweek, the Associated Press, and the Boston Globe repeated this statistic, and many others joined the media chorus, with or without that unsubstantiated statistic.

When the Centers for Disease Control and the Department of Agriculture examined people from a variety of income levels, however, they found no evidence of malnutrition among those in the lowest income brackets. Nor was there any significant difference in the intake of vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients from one income level to another.

Many of us have been saying for some time that the normalization of homosexual marriage will inevitably open the door to the state’s acceptance of polygamy. Proponents of gay marriage typically scoff and say we’re silly for making such a slippery slope argument. Well, not anymore.

In an op-ed in today’s New York Times, Jonathan Turley argues that the same civil liberties that enable homosexuals to marry must also allow for polygamous relationships. He’s right.

If framed in terms of rights and freedoms, then of course homosexuals and polygamists have the right to freely marry however many of whichever gender they choose. A polygamist man would be free to marry two men and three women if he chose and they were agreeable.

But what if the debate is not really about rights and freedoms but about nature? If marriage is by nature the covenantal union between one man and one woman, then . . .

As Americans, along with our American neighbors to the north, celebrate our respective holidays, we would do well to ponderTocqueville’s opinion that liberty cannot govern a people without faith.Nothing could be more truly patriotic than to be faithfully present in our countries as salt and light in our communities. With “glowing hearts” from the work of the Spirit (Jeremiah 31:31), let us stand on guard for the faith and contend for Christ together.

In 1830 a 26 year old Frenchman named Alexander Tocqueville was commissioned to travel to America and evaluate the prison system. He returned and wrote his famous, Democracy in America, an extended reflection on what was contributing to America’s greatness.

One of the things that Tocqueville argued was that for America to continue in greatness it was essential that the faith of the American people continue. He contended that the reason political freedom in America was not abused was because the faith of the country imposed needed boundaries.

Below is an excerpt from his chapter, “Accidental or Providential Causes Which Contribute to Maintain the Democratic Republic in the United States.”

Despotism may govern without faith, but liberty cannot. Religion is much more necessary in the republic which they set forth in glowing colors than in the monarchy which they attack; it is more needed in democratic republics than in any others. How is it possible that society should escape destruction if the moral tie is not strengthened in proportion as the political tie is relaxed? And what can be done with a people who are their own masters if they are not submissive to the Deity?